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- Dicey, A Dice Game of Skill and Luck
- User Manual
- Monday, February 21, 2000
-
- Dicey is a game played by one to six persons. Rolling the dice,
- each person tries to score in thirteen different categories. The
- object of the game is to achieve the highest score. The computer
- program will keep track of the scores, rolls, whose turn it is,
- etc, on a game board on the screen.
-
- How to Start
- The program maintains two kinds of data files:
- 1) A Name File, containing the names of all Dicey players
- 2) A Score File for each player.
-
- When the program starts, it first checks for a Name File. If it
- does not find one, it will display a dialogue box, asking you to
- add players to the Name File. Every player must have a unique
- name (or nickname), from one to 10 positions long. Do not use
- special characters in the name, but spaces are allowed.
-
- If you would like a picture to display when it is your turn, you
- may wish at this time to copy some jpeg pictures (using Windows
- Explorer, for example) to the program's current directory
-
- The program will now ask you who is going to play this game. Pick
- from one to six players from the Name File (using the menu at the
- top of the screen). If you wish to play more than one game of the
- six available, you may add your own name more than once.
-
- When you are done picking the names of the players, the computer
- will automatically roll the dice for the first player. If a jpeg
- file that matches the name of the player is found in the current
- directory, it will display during the player's turn.
-
- How to Play
- These instructions refer to categories on the game board
- (following this topic). During the player's turn, he looks at his
- dice, and based on the values that are showing, tries to decide
- which game board category to shoot for. During his turn, he can
- "pick up" (by clicking) any or all of the dice, and toss them
- again (by hitting the "Roll Dice" button). The player can pick up
- and toss the dice one more time. At this time, he must decide
- which category to score.
-
- The player's turn then ends. The dice automatically roll for the
- next player.
-
- Instead of clicking on the dice, the player can press the 1, 2,
- 3, 4, or 5 keys, respectively. The ENTER key will simulate
- pressing the "Roll Dice" button. This makes the game less mouse-
- intensive. Scoring, however, must be done with the mouse.
-
- At the end of the game, a stat board will appear. It will display
- some really neat information, such as your average before this
- game, your average after this game, your high and low score, et
- cetera. If you scored over average, the computer will greet you
- with applause. Conversely, if you scored under average, the
- computer will console you with an "awww".
-
- The Game Board
- Menu Options are discussed below.
-
- Only the first six characters of the player name are displayed.
- The board is tight; that's all there is room for unless I made
- the character font smaller.
-
- The doubler button is used to double the value of any one score.
- It can be used only once per game, so use it wisely!
-
- The scoring categories are listed below.
- Category Combination needed Category Score
- Name
- Aces Aces Total of all dice that
- show a "one"
- Twos Twos Total of all dice that
- show a "two"
- Threes Threes Total of all dice that
- show a "three"
- Fours Fours Total of all dice that
- show a "four"
- Fives Fives Total of all dice that
- show a "five"
- Sixes Sixes Total of all dice that
- show a "six"
- Three of a At least three of the Total of all dice
- Kind same value
- Four of a Four of the five of the Total of all dice
- Kind same value
- Full House Three of a kind and a 1-1/2 times the total of
- pair the dice
- Flush All dice are the same 25. If it is also a
- color straight, an extra 40 will
- score.
- Straight one-two-three-four-five 40. If it is also a flush,
- or an extra 25 will score.
- two-three-four-five-six
- Dicey All five dice show the 50 points, plus 100 for
- same value all subsequent Diceys
- scored in other
- categories.
- Dumper Anything Total of all dice. The
- player can score in this
- category three times.
-
- Menu Options
- Game|New- This option will start a new game. All current games
- will be aborted. All personal scoreboards will be
- updated.
-
- Game|Exit- This option will end the game. All current games
- will be aborted. All personal scoreboards will be
- updated.
-
- Players|Add to PlayerFile
- This option will allow you to add new players to the
- master Dicey players file. All people who play this
- game must be in the players file.
-
- Players|Pick for Play
- This optiuon will let you tell Dicey who (from the
- master players file) will be playing this game of
- Dicey.
-
- Sounds You have the option of turning sound effects on and off
- (See Sound Effcets below).Turning sounds off will speed
- up the game, but it will make the game less fun to
- play.
-
- Help|Help This option will display this file.
-
- Help|About This option will tell you about Dicey.
-
- Pictures
- The program will display a picture of the player when it is his
- turn, if there is a jpeg picture in the current directory whose
- name matches that of the player, e.g. Jane.JPG.
-
- Sound Effects
- Sound effects are played at certain times during the play of the
- game. You may replace any pf the sound files with your own, but
- you must name them the same as the original. For example, if you
- are not happy with the "Bummer" sound, simply copy one of your
- own wave (.WAV) files to the current directory as "bummer.wav".
- If you hear a bell, the chances are that one of the sound files
- is missing, misspelled, or corrupted.
-
- Make sure you keep the original sound files in a safe place, in
- case you ever want to restore it.
-
- The sound files are listed below.
- Filename Sound effect When it plays
- AWWW Awwwww Under average
- BIGCHEER Cheering Score a straight
- BUMMER "Bummer" Score a zero
- CLAP Applause Over average
- DOH "Doh!" Tried to score a box that was
- already scored
- DOUBLED "Your score was The doubler feature was used
- doubled"
- DUMMY "Dummy" Scored Dicey, but did NOT mark it
- as such
- NICEG "Nice going!" When an extra 25 is scored in the
- upper bonus
- OOH "Oooooooh" More than 20 in Dumper
- ROLLDICE Dice rolling Rolling the dice
- TYFPD "Thank you for End of game: "Thank you for
- playing Dicey" playing Dicey"
- YES "Yes!" Scored Dicey, and marked it as
- such
- YFTUYD "You forgot to use At the end of the game, if the
- your doubler" player did not use his doubler at
- all during the game
- YOUMISS "You missed your Missed the upper bonus
- bonus"
-
- Player Name File
- The Player Name File (PLAYERNM.DAT) is a file containing the
- names of the Dicey players that you added at the beginning of one
- of the games. For your convenience, it was written as a simple
- text file.
-
- Scores File
- The Scores File (playername.DAT) is used to calculate averages,
- and all of the other statistics that appear on the stat board.
- Again, for your convenience, it was written as a text file. This
- way, you can easily (using your favorite text editor) merge the
- scores from games played in two different locations.
-
- End of Dicey User Manual
-